Goodbye June, Hello July!

First things first: Random pictures from the week.

From the files of: "Pictures from my camera taken by someone other than myself."













Well, July is upon us again! Two years ago I was at MD Anderson having my first day of chemo. I'm pretty glad it is 2010 and not 2008.
This last week was pretty good.
On Tuesday I took the boys to see the free movie at the mall-- Astro Boy. So far we've seen The Spy Next Door, Planet 51, Kitt Kittredge An American Girl, and now Astro Boy. Believe it or not, the boys really liked Kitt Kittredge. I wouldn't have thought to take them to it, just because of the name, and my boys' seeming aversion to all things "girl," but at the mall a couple of weeks ago after watching "The Spy Next Door," Mosey and I ran into another family in the other ward who have 2 boys also 8 and 6, who had just seen Kitt Kittredge, and she said her boys really liked it, so I decided to expand their horizons. :-)
After the movie we wandered the mall trying to find some cologne for Ben (belated Father's Day present), and then ate lunch at the food court. As we were leaving the mall, I suddenly remembered something.
It's so weird how that happens. I wasn't thinking about anything related at all, it just suddenly hit me that I forgot to go and pick up the boys' artwork the day before.
The boys took an art class this past year, every Wednesday afternoon. They had an art show at the end of May, and I was supposed to go pick up their artwork the next week. I completely forgot about it until I got an email from the fine arts school informing us that they had closed due to low enrollment. Then it occurred to me I never picked up their stuff. So I emailed the director and she said they'd already turned in the keys to the landlord and she thinks all the leftover stuff had been left in the building, but she'd try to find a way to get in and pick it up. She emailed me a couple of weeks later and told me to come to this church in the afternoon last Monday. And I totally spaced that, too! When I remembered, I felt ill. All of the hours that my boys spent on their artwork. They were so proud of it and we had talked about hanging up some of the pieces upstairs. So as soon as I got home, I called the lady again and thank goodness she still had it, and told me to come back the next Monday (today) to pick it up. I'm NOT going to forget this time!
Anyway, how's that for a tangent.
Last week a hurricane made it's way down to Mexico and we felt the weather effects for about 3 days. Lots of rain and thunder and humidity!!! (Since I am on a self-imposed news fast, I had no idea about the hurricane, and only found out when I mentioned to Ben how much the weather was reminding me of Miami, and he was incredulous that I hadn't heard about it!) Sometimes people in Austin complain about the humidity, and it *can* get muggy here, but it is nothing (nothing!) like how it was all summer long in Miami. My measure of humidity is if it's humid enough outside for the windows of the house to fog up on the *outside* because of the cool air conditioning inside. Well, we reached that last Friday for sure! It felt just like Florida. Man, I do not miss hurricanes.



The boys had fun writing on the windows.



Someone's trying to butter me up. :-) "I love mom."


On Saturday Ben took the boys down to San Marcos to go tubing down the river. I was a little worried because of all the rain we had last week, but the boys loved it! I wish I could have gone.
I wasn't feeling very well on Saturday, and I had to get ready for a lesson the next day, so I guess it was just as well.
Yesterday (the Fourth), we went to church and had a quiet afternoon, and then decided at the last minute to go downtown to the big fireworks display and free concert by the Austin Symphony downtown. I packed a super-fancy picnic of peanut butter and jelly, bread, graham crackers, dried apricots, and pink lemonade. We drove down there and got caught in a great big traffic jam. We left around 7:15, and the concert didn't start until 8:30, so I had brought some books thinking we'd have time to wait. Well, by the time we finally got down there, it was 8:15, and by the time we parked (thank goodness for handicapped parking at the parking garage-- the lot was full for everyone else and I have NO idea where all those people were finding places to park), and walked down to the park, it was 8:27. Perfect timing.
There were tons of people. I guess there are routinely more than 100,000 people who come down for the fireworks, and I believe it. The park was around Lady Bird Lake (formerly Town Lake), just south of downtown. It is a BIG park, and there were LOTS of people.
The concert was nice, especially the 1812 overture with real cannons! (Courtesy of the Texas National Guard.) And the fireworks were awesome, accompanied by the orchestra playing patriotic music. Not quite as big a display as the Rose Bowl, but still really good. Definitely worth going.
And thank goodness, because it took us an hour to get out of the parking garage! LOL, I guess that's the price you pay for close parking. We just relaxed and listened to our audio book and enjoyed the night. The weather was perfect-- clear with a warm breeze. I'm so glad we decided to go instead of just doing nothing at home.

Waiting for the fireworks.



Listening to the concert.



Brigham's first live orchestra concert. I need to take them to more!



The beautiful Austin skyline.





Just a small segment of the huge crowd at the park.


And the obligatory fireworks shots:






Today Ben is off work, but not really since he's been working outside all day! I even went outside to pull weeds for a while, wearing my ice vest. And now Ben and the boys are off doing errands and I'm enjoying the peace and quiet while waiting for the laundry to finish.